After the game, UD coach Tamika Williams-Jeter referred to her ability to dunk, but especially focused on how: “She’s really emerging in some nice spots. She’s a little like a 1970s ABA post player.”
- The fact that Williams-Jeter was there to comment at all was a nod to her true character. Four days earlier she was ejected from the game against VCU for inadvertently bumping an official on the court. She was initially facing a one-game suspension, but the penalty was rescinded Thursday because of the way she and the UD administration responded immediately after the incident.
She apologized and was willing to accept whatever penalty came her way.
It was also taken into consideration that during some 30 years of competitive basketball — at Chaminade Julienne, four years at UConn, eight years in the WNBA and coaching (often in the offseason of her pro career) since 2002, including the past three seasons as a head coach — she had never received a technical foul.
“It pays to be a good person,” she said with a shrug after Sunday’s game, her easy smile masking the grit and competitiveness that fueled her career, especially as a WNBA rebounder.
- And that brings us to Arianna Smith, the Flyers’ 6-2 junior forward, who had 17 rebounds against the Bonnies. It was her third highest single-game total of the season, behind 21 against Ohio Dominican and 19 versus Wichita State.
She leads the Atlantic 10 in rebounding with an 11.3 average. As of late Sunday afternoon, she was seventh in the nation (NCAA Division I) in rebounding.
While other UD players made big contributions Sunday — Ivy Wolf and Anyssa Jones both had 16 points and Destiny Bohanon added 12 — Smith was the one player who truly dominated.
“My teammates call me The Worm,” she said with a quiet laugh. “That’s after Dennis Rodman.”
She got the name this season from assistant coach Darryl Hudson.
She knew who he was talking about, and she said her mom did, too, when she told her about her new moniker:
“She said, ‘Oh yeah, he was a great rebounder!’”
As for her teammates, she thought some might have had to Google him: “I mean it definitely was a time ago.”
The 6-7 Rodman was an indomitable force on the NBA backboards throughout the 1990s. Playing for the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons, the San Antonio Spurs then the Chicago Bulls, he led the league in rebounding for seven straight seasons.
Rodman won five NBA titles — two with the Pistons and three with the Bulls. He was twice named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year and in a career that spanned 1986-2000 and five different teams, he grabbed 11,594 rebounds for a 13.1 average.
He was also known for his self-adornment — tattoos, dyed hair, numerous piercings — and his antics, whether it was dating Madonna back in the day, wearing a white wedding dress to promote his autobiography “Bad As I Wanna Be,” his involvement in pro wrestling or his more recent visit to North Korea where he hung out with Kim Jong Un.
“I ain’t going that far,” Smith laughed.
While she does have some tattoos and her nose and tongue are pieced, that’s it she said.
“I look at him as an idol for his rebounding,” she said. “He wasn’t an offensive player, but he studied how to get a rebound. How to crash the boards.
“And he studied his teammates. Where their shots were coming from, where the ball would come off (the rim.) Every game he performed.”
Smith, who transferred to UD before last season from Indiana State, has done the same.
As a freshman, she started 16 games and played in 28 at Indiana State, where she averaged 4.5 boards a game.
After ACL surgery on her right knee, she came to UD, started all 17 games she played in last season and averaged nine rebounds a game.
She’s started 16 of 19 games for the 9-11 Flyers this season and has become “a monster” as Williams-Jeter described her rebounding.
“It’s a mentality,” the coach said. “She gets really upset if she doesn’t get 10-plus rebounds each game. And then practice is going to be an issue the next day. She takes it personal against the guys.”
The UD women regularly practice against a scout team made up solely of men.
“The same thing she does in games, she does in practice against the guys,” Williams-Jeter said.
“The guys are a lot tougher and stronger,” Smith said. “I’m not saying the girls are weak, but they’re not as strong as the guys and they don’t move as fast. That helps me during the games.”
She said it especially does late in a game when she senses other team getting tired: “They’re not going to want to box me out. They’re not going to want to move…But I won’t quit.”
That was a trait of Rodman as well.
“Yeah, I watched one of those 50/50 films on ESPN about him,” she said of the 30 for 30 documentaries. “I learned about him.”
Rodman got his nickname as a young boy. His mom, Shirely, got a kick out of the way he used to wiggle when he played pinball and nicknamed him The Worm.
Growing up, Smith said the only nickname her family came up with for her was Nanni, an affectionate play off her name.
That’s fine and a lot of her teammates do call her that, but out on the court it’s a little too cute for what she does.
Out there, she is The Worm.
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